Carving Three Whole Raw Chickens

A pot of meat and a pot of bones.

Have you ever been to Costco just for milk and eggs, but end up leaving with a full cart?

That happens to us at least week!

But this is a good deal. $5 off for a pack of three whole chickens, which makes it just over $20. 

We are not a big fan of roasted whole chickens because no one likes plain chicken breasts. So I decided to carve all three and cook each section differently.

Carving a whole raw chicken is not as hard as you think, as long as you overcome the fear of handling the raw chicken (the head and neck are gone anyway). You also do not need a heavy duty butcher knife because you only cut in between the joints, not right through the bones. All you need is a big cutting board and a sharp chef knife. Make sure your cutting board is for raw meat only to avoid cross contamination. I also do not like to wash the raw birds, as I have read articles state that washing raw meat doesn't do much but spread bacteria. Plus you will later cook the chicken to kill whatever might be dangerous to you, so I don't bother.

I prepared the video below and also wrote out the steps. The photos are not in good quality as those are snap shots of the video.

1. Cutting out the legs: Breast side up, land your knife between the leg and breast. Cut down all the way until you hit the bone. Flip the chicken over and bend the leg back towards the back of the chicken to "crack" the joint loose. Finish separating the leg by running the knife down the side of the backbone and in between the joint. Repeat the same for the other side. Trim off any excess fat and skin.
   
2. Cutting out the wings: Breast side down. Use your free hand to pull the wing away from the chicken body then land your knife between the wings and breast. gently cut down and around the bone. Find the joint and cut in between it. Once the chicken wing is detached, Find the joint and split the wind (drumlet, wing, tip). Repeat the same for the other side.
   
3. Cutting out the breasts: Breast side up. with your finger, feel the location of the middle bone and land your knife on one side as close to the bone as possible. Gently slice down along the bone while using the other hand to gentle pull the breast away to expose the bone. Continue until the whole piece of breast is attached. Repeat the same for the other side.
   
4. Separate the carcass 1: The whole carcass would be too big to fit in a stock pot. Remove and discard the "butt". Breast side down. Hold the bottom of the carcass with one hand while the other hand grab the top (where the butt was) and pull back. The lower part of the backbone will snap naturally at a joint. Cut in between where it snapped to remove the lower part of the backbone.
   
5. Separate the carcass 2:Hope the carcass up so that the bottom of the it is facing up, land your knife in the middle of the rib cage - you will see that in the middle of each rib cage, there is actually a point that looks like a joint - land your knife there and cut down until you hit the neck. Put down your knife. Use one hand to grab the backbone and the other hand to grab the breast bone, open the two pieces like a book. Keep opening it until you feel that the joints near the neck crack. Use your knife to cut through the two joints to separate the top part of the backbone and the chest bone.
   
6. Separate the carcass 3: The chest bone can be left uncut, but I like to hammer it down to flatten it up a little bit.

Now you have a bowl of chicken meat for different dishes and a bowl of bone for making stock (and the meat from the bones for Coco too)!